Multistretchable leather substitute.



E. WEINHEIM. MULTISTRETCHABLE LEATHER SUBSTITUTE.

APPLICATION FILED FEB. 8- I917.

Patented Oct. 9, 1917.

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EMIL WEINHEIM, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

Specification of Letters Patent.

MULTISTRETCHAIBLE LEATHER SUBSTITUTE.

Patented Oct, 9, 1917.

Application filed February 8, 1917. Serial No. 147,347.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, EMIL WEINHEIM, a citizenof the United States, and a resident of the city, county, and State ofNew York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements inMultistretchable Leather Substitutes, set forth in the followingspecification.

Heretofore it has been customary to make artificial substitutes forleather by the employment of a woven textile fabric, the body of whichhas been more or less completely impregnated with a leatherizing dope ofvarious compositions, and the surface of which has been treated to givethe appearance of finished leather. Many attempts, especially recently,have been made to use this leather substitute, characterized by therectangular lie of the yarn from which the body fabric is woven, to makeshoe-uppers and Vamps. This old substitute leather, on

account of the woven nature of its body fabric, has proven absolutelyunsatisfactory for such articles as shoe-uppers and Vamps because of thefact that it will not stretch in the true sense of the word. The wovenfabric has no strength against a diagonal shear or what may be describedas a distortion on the bias. fabric is little more than aninterconnectednet-work of squares which are structurally incapable ofresisting shear when one side of a square is subjected to a forcetending to make it slip relatively to the opposite side. On the otherhand, such a fabric is inherently substantially unyielding either in thedirection of the warp or in the direction of the weft. The type ofleather employed for such articles as shoe-uppers, va-mps and glovesmust be and is pliable and slightly stretchable substantially uniformlyin all directions.

The object of this invention is to provide an artificial substitute forleather of the Such a body fabric I have discovered to be Geometrically,a woven The above may better be understood by reference to theaccompanying claims and the following specification which sets forth anillustrative embodiment of the invention in connection with adiagrammatic showing in the accompanying drawings, which form a parthereof, and in which like characters designate corresponding parts inthe figures, of which Figure 1 is a cross-section in diagram of a pieceof the finished substitute, but showing the woven body fabric insimplified diagram designating a knit fabric of single, simple stitch,rather than the close, complex stitch which is preferable for theinvention; and Fig. 2 is a plan view of a knitted body fabric.

I preferably employ closely knitted fabrics of high-grade cotton yarnor' Woolen yarn, or of a yarn combining both cotton and wool. It ispreferable that the stitch employed be such as to impart as nearly aspracticable uniform stretchability in all directions.

This knitted body fabric, diagrammatically indicated in the drawings byA is then treated with a suitable leatherizing dope which may be appliedefficiently and conveniently by the process described in my co-pendingapplication entitled Method of completely impregnating textile fabricwith filling material, Ser. No. 130,930, filed Nov. 11, 1916, or by theemployment of only a part, preferably the latter part of the processdescribed in the said application. The leatherizing dope may be causedcompletely to permeate the body fabric A, as indicated in Fig. 1, sothat it forms a wrong side c'overing 1 for the fabric A, a complete bodyfilling 2, a right side covering 3, and finished surface 4 and, at thesame time, completely permeating the threads or yarn 5 of the bodyfabric A; or merely the finished surface 4:, the covering 3 and agreater or less body filling partially permeating the I prefer theemployment of a leatherizing 'dope for the body filling of my substituteformed from an emulsion of oxidizable oils such as linseed oil which hasbeen partially oxidized and thickened by the application of heat andair, with the desired coloring pigments and fillers. llhe emulsionprefierably contains a small percentage of castoroil and maybe thinnedfor application with addition to this filling, a surface coating on thefinished side of a soft, pyroxylin compound which likewise may bethinned with alcohol and should contain some castoroil. 7 In fact theentire body filling and coat? ing may be thesoft pyroxylin compound, ifdesire In view of the fact that it is practically impossible adequatelyto illustrate and describe the product which is the subject of myinvention, I have embodied as a part of this application two samples,one of a suitable knitted textile fabric, and the-other a piece of thesame fabric leatherized in acmeet cordance with my invention. 'Thesamples are so attached hereto that a ready test of the stretchabilityof a substantial amount inall directions may be made by the examlner.

What ll claim and what ll desire to secure by United States LettersPatent is:

1. An artificial substitute for leather of the type suitable for sucharticles as shoeuppers, Vamps and working gloves comprising abody-fabric of knitted yarn carrying a surface coating and filling ofleatherizing dope of the oxidizable oil type whereby the finishedartificial substitute is stretchable a substantial amount in alldirections.

2. An artificial substitute for leather of the type suitable for sucharticles as shoeuppers, Vamps and working gloves comprising abody-fabric of knitted yarn carryinga surface coating and body-fillingof leatherizing dope of the oxidizable oil type com-' pletely permeatingthe entire thickness of said body-fabric whereby the finishedart-ificial substitute is stretchable a substantial amount in alldirections.

In testimony whereof l have signed my name to this specification, this7th day of February, 1917.

' EMJDL WEINHEJIM.

